The Brahim & His Untouchables – Part 2
In the second part of this post, I want to highlight some additional information from the book, which I found interesting and then I’ll conclude with an analysis of what message the book left with me. I’ll continue where I left off…
Barclays Bank London:
When Githongo finally runaway to London, he tried to open a bank account at a local Barclays Branch. During that process, he mentioned that he had formerly worked in the Office of the Kenyan President. Upon hearing this phrase, red flags went up at Barclays and Githongo had to get a special letter from his Oxford College employer/host. Apparently, Barclays was worried that Githongo might be a PEP – A Politically Exposed Person trying to deposit large sums of illicity acquired wealth.
Aaron Ringera:
It was Githongo himself lobbied hard for Ringera to get the post at KACC and even insisted that giving him a high salary would allow Ringera to be free from corrupt tempations, which might have affected his capacity to do his job properly. However, as we all know now, Ringera turned on John (um..Hello John? Ringera & Kiraitu owned a law firm together). In the book, Michela Wrong describes Ringera as a man who possesses “a colossal laziness..(and displays) ..the complaceny of a man who is exactly where he wants to be in career and monetary terms and intends to stay there as long as possible.” Ringera and Kiraitu are linked together at the hip.
The Good Kenyans:
They are several Kenyans mentioned in the book, some named and others unamed, who are trying to fight this corrupt system. For example, Githong’s information on Anglo-leasing was being provided to him by simple clerks who took enormous risks to photocopy files and hand them to him because they did not like what was happening to them. These unamed clerks are Kenya’s real heroes, working for the people to expose the rot they see. Others are more visible and their cause is the same. Lisa Karanja who worked with Githong at Transparency International, Mwalimu Mati, Maina Kiai, Hussein Were (who was fired sacked by KACC for daring to challenge Ringera), bloggers like Ory Okolloh and Martin Kimani, the website Mzalendo and several other people and sites.
However, there is one man whose name many have never heard of, but who fought hard to try and expose a case that also informed vast amounts of money — i.e. Goldenberg. The man’s name was David Munyakei and he was a simple clerk from a poor family, who worked at the Central Bank’s pre-shipment export compensation office.
The custom forms companies submitted to secure payment for goods to be exported, went through Munyakei’s hands. It was there that Munyakei first started noticing irregularities with these forms. He was processing the same forms over and over again, the numbers on the forms kept changing (whited over & filled in again), the sums being paid out were enormous (billions of shillings) & they were coming in two and three times a week, but one thing seemed odd: These forms were being submitted after 5 p.m. when no one else was around. Munyakei was the only one there and that was because he boss forced him to stay around and make sure the forms were processed and the money paid out. Munyakei was processing forms to export gold, a commodity which Kenya didn’t posses.
Shortly after this, information about what was going on at Central Bank started appearing the Daily Nation. Although Munyakei was not the only who knew what was going on (other people at the bank knew) – he was blamed for leaking the information. He was then picked up by the CID and charged with violating the Official Secrets Act. On hearing the news of his arrest, Munyakei’s mother suffered a stroke and died without ever regaining consciousness. After being questioned by the CID, no charges were brought against him, but Munyakei was fired from his job and they refused to give him references (making it impossible for him to get another banking sector job). On July 16th, 2006, Munyakei died while at Narok hospital, too sick and too poor to afford treatment that would have saved his life. He was only 38 when he died.
My Conclusions:
The overall impression that I got from the book was of country who since it’s birth at independence has been ruled by a succession of thugs. First by Kenyatta and his thugs, then by Moi and his thugs and now by Kibaki and his thugs (& Kibaki is a thug. Githongo later concluded that Kibaki had recovered significantly from his stroke and was part and parcel of the corruption. He was not a disjointed, disconnected old man. He knew exactly what was going on with people like Kiraitu, Mwiraria and Murungaru).
An honest analysis of the entire book would tell you that the system in Kenya is so totally broken and so entirely corrupt that for real change to occur, something other than an election will have to take place. If your a middle class Kenyan (especially), you need to understand that this continued corruption has produced a very, dangerous and unequal society and as I was reading the book, I kept asking myself this question: How much can people take before they eventually explode? Many of the people quoted in the book (the bloggers and others) have been warning that the country is headed for a dangerous place, but they are being largely ignored.
Why are they being ignored when the evidence is now starring them right in the face? there’s no water, electricity is being rationed, 10 million are starving (the true number is probably closer to 15 or 20 million)…the system is collapsing and they’re not going to be able to continue like this for much longer. i.e. Raila cannot come in (if he does) with his new thugs and continue stealing from where Kibaki left off. The dynamics have become much more dangerous: the inequality is wider, the poverty is wider, the population is much larger. Somebody is going to have to stop these guys and I don’t think democracy or an election can do it.
I have a friend who is currently doing some social work in the slums and he just emailed me to tell me that what he is seeing is beyond description.
Anyway, I’ve said enough. You should pick up the book and read it. It’s a fascinating and brutally honest description of Kenya’s failed leadership.
Your thoughts…
BTW – The Brahmin in this case is John Githongo, that’s a description applied to him in the book. He is called a Kenyan Brahimin because of his upper middle class upbringing. The Untouchables are the men he tried to bring down. They were “untouchable” in every sense of the word.
Wow, I cant comment on this now but first thing tomorrow morning, i am gonna buy the book and read then come back and comment.
I had started to read the book back in May, but never got around to finishing it. I will now.
ke,
Interesting review. Like I said, I am not surprised by any of this things. The reason I said it is because Kenyan elected legislators sold out their souls long time ago.
I disagree you calling them thugs and I’ll explain why…. The reason why is because everybody is trying to survive. When everyone is trying to survive its easy for a person to sell their souls.
The elected officials are only trying to get a bigger piece of cake to feed their starving and unemployed constituents.
The problem is only made worse when an elected officials sells their soul. Because it follows, the rest of people trying to survive will do anything to get bread and this is like a vicious cycle that will never stop.
Even if you try and stay clean with no bad record in Kenya, the people will not vote you back if you leave them hungry. So elected officials have to find other sources of wealth creation which ends up being the public coffers.
I see you talking about good Kenyans. I have news for you, In Kenya there is no good or bad Kenyan. Everybody is trying to survive. If you step in the way of a person try to feed a whole tribe, he’ll see no use of you and throw you out.
I’m not by any chance saying that things will never change. I believe things can change but they need to start changing from the top down or maybe the bottom up… I don’t know or I guess we should start by feeding the hungry people first …… Damn… This is a hard equation here !!
Read the book, tried to not comment but didier just made me want to comment. Alot of the those ” elected officials are only trying to get a bigger piece of cake to feed their starving and unemployed constituents”. For only trying to help out there constituents they sure are living large!! Get to know them, and you will be surprised at the expenditures.
There are many legitimate ways to help their consitituents survive, and many of the legitimate ways are thrown by the wayside.
How about scrambling and hustling to get a factory built in one’s constituency?
If it is hunger, we need a green revolution, how many are focused on that?
The reality is well-fed and educated masses have the tendency of not acting like sheep, and asking tough questions.
working stiff,
You still have not answered the problematic equation here….
How is the Mp going to survive, taking his constituents to hospital, build schools, build hospitals, build homes for orphans, handicapped and build roads, feeding the homeless. It seems to me the West expects too much from the Country when the Country has no proper Institutions and No able leader who will address these shortcomings. When you look close enough you realize that the people want to live good but they been handed a poor gadget and they don’t know how to make it work.
You need to look at the bigger picture here- The country is in a dilemma what needs to be done first, feed the hungry or run after the so called thieves who stole to feed themselves and the people who are hungry ???
Compare it with the West. The unemployment Insurance goes a long way in helping the people laid off from work.
Disability payments go a long way in helping the people injured at work and etc.
Food banks all over the American cities go a long way in feeding the hungry.
The Salvation Army will take in anybody who is homeless as long as you can provide proper Identification and you are ready to change your life.
You people need to look at the bigger picture. The problem cannot be solved by just Implicating people without even looking at the bigger picture and get to the root cause of all the occurrences.
Or do you really think its a coincidence that every Mp who has served through the Kenyan parliament is connected in one way or another to corruption or Impunity ? Do you think its a coincidence ??? …… Think Again !!
Ok I see the error of my ways, Kenya’s problems are unique to Kenya, and other Asian countries have not experienced any of the problems Kenya experiences
I did not realize that most MP’s really take the corruption money and spend it building schools, hospitals, etc.
If my MP in Kenya is stealing to help the constituency, then I think he really is incompetent, I have yet to see any results of his stealing. If he is stealing for his cronies that’s another story.
Indonesia, Malaysia, etc have had corrupt rulers the difference is that they took from a growing economy, and made sure it grew, not increasing their share of a stagnant or shrinking pie.
Kenya’s economic policies do not seem to have changed since independence. I can summarise the responses:
One question I have is how were we able to survive for millenia, govern ourselves without self-destructing? How come we never turned into cannibals? Or maybe you believe we did?
The “I don’t know how to manage the economy excuse” is getting old. There is expertise in the country, but many do not want to listen to the expertise. Look at those papers and committees created by the govt. Some of them really did present some very practical solutions.
The PEV is a perfect example.
Working stiff,
I don’t want to sound like the Devils Advocate but the worst kind of corruption is the one that people send money outside the country. This amounts to capital flight and the money does not support any production or create any jobs in the country.
I think any educated person would see the logic behind this. I got to be really honest here, I don’t support corruption. But In Kenya its really hard not to be corrupt, how come I lived here in the west this long and I have never been involved in any corruption. The answer is simple- In Kenya Its either you survive or the system eats you up.
So my point is, If any Mp or corrupt government official knows they spent the money on their constituents why don’t they just produce the receipts and we’ll rest the cases against them.
The rest of them that don’t have the receipts need to have their property disclosed and repossessed by the people of Kenya. Since this is very clear, I’m sure Kenyans would support such move.
Didier,
You are definately supporting corruption and you are trying to justify it..If those stealing can produce receipts, then you are fine…no wonder every tribe wants its time to eat.
mwalimu,
“I got to be really honest here, I don’t support corruption. But In Kenya its really hard not to be corrupt.”
Look at least am not pretending that i have never bribed in Kenya. All am saying is I believe we need to look at the bigger picture in all this conundrum …
The only day i can even start thinking of coming back to Kenya is when a budget is read that does not have any money coming from any other governments in the form of aid for government recurrent expenditure.
The truth is this- Unless the country gets a leader who believes in having a lean & simple budget that balances the countries revenues and expenses and reflects the realities of the country’s risk perception with revenue solely coming from production of goods and services within the country then If this does not happen then the vicious cycle will continue of plundering the money borrowed from western countries. Anything that people get easily is not valued, when people pay a price to get something then… It is valued. This is like ABC. When will the people get to that point when they realize that they are being taken for a ride ??
Young Kenyans need to know this- They need to know their future is being morgauged by his Excellency Kibaki and Prime Minister Odinga. The youth need to be told that all that money being borrowed from the west is their future. Kenya does not need a bloated government to have peace. That is NONSENSE !!
The Youth need to know that for every Mp that is sitting in Parliament today- None of them is making sacrifices to give them a better future- Not paying taxes here for anyone here in America is a very bad offense and it carries very serious charges.
For Mp’s to just fan rhetoric that they need the money – Is completely absurd and nonsense !!